1188
just temporarily embarrassed billionaires, one good idea or lottery ticket from making it rich
(lemmy.today)
this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2026
1188 points (98.9% liked)
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Here we go again. No sources.
According to his site:
https://www.sanders.senate.gov/press-releases/sanders-make-college-tuition-free/
It would cost $70B/year.
According to this site, he makes about $9.8B/year, so even a 100% tax wouldn't do it.
The problem is how do you calculate his taxes? He's already doing that and paying his $800 or whatever it is. So you have to make assumptions about how much you would tax at 4.7%.
I therefore assumed this meant if his entire net worth were taxed at 4.7%.
According to here which tracks it real time: https://www.forbes.com/profile/jeff-bezos/
It's currently $270B.
$270B x 0.047 = $12.7B.
So no, you couldn't fund it just by taxing him 4.7%. I think we'll need to create a special tax on billionaires to cover the rest.
Wealth tax... It is extremely obvious that this would be a wealth tax.
And?
Currently, we're subsidizing Bezos. US taxpayers are paying Amazon
And currently, a few people, including Bezos, own more than does half of the US.
Yup and that's probably the biggest injustice the world has ever seen. But that doesn't erase the fact that Bezos, does not have an income or even a net worth of $1.5T, which is what it would take at 4.7% to make $70B.
This meme could just as easily have said, for instance, that "just Bezos alone could personally fund this program for three years and he'd still be a billionaire. Imagine if we forced that on every billionaire." It would still make a powerful point without spreading a lie to do it. Because if you think a whole bunch of people who saw this and didn't fact check it AREN'T going to repeat it to other people, your kidding yourself.
Plus it didn't explain were the money comes from. Bazos makes 80k a year, and his stocks go up in value which is why good net worth goes up. If we taxes his unrealized gains where the money come from?
We need a way to tax when stock valuation is used as collateral for loans and revolving credit, enabling people from Bezos to have paper income of 80K and realizing gains without actually realizing gains. A general wealth tax, especially on unrealized gains, is obviously dumb, but the ghost gains loophole needs to be closed.
Bottom line is that stock valuation shouldn't be allowed to be use for collateral. If it doesn't exist for tax purposes, then it doesn't exist for collateral purposes. You want billions of dollars to play with? Liquidate your assets, pay your taxes, and have fun.
The system was obviously created as a tax dodge. We don't have to act like it's all over, they won, and there is nothing to be done. We can change it, and take away their tax dodge that is painfully parasitic on our society.
Just come up with a variable and if your total loans for the year (using speculative assets as collateral) are above that amount, the assets are taxed as realized gains. And the loan as income.
My thought is the limit should be 100x the annual take home pay of the bottom 20% of workers. Currently that's about $1.6m. It has the bonus of needing to increase worker pay for cheaper loans.
They have to sell part of there action. If I can't pay a debt, can i tell them you can't smake me sell my actions to reimburse my debt...
So every billionaire is going to selling stocks. You do realize the owners is these stocks are going to either be china or Black Rock if that happens. They are the only ones that would be able to afford to buy them. It would be a massive transfer of weath to big corporations or even worse a foreign country.
An idea I've come across is to tax the shares directly into a fund held by the IRS to be sold over time on the market. I haven't extensively thought through it myself, but that could help spread the buying period allowing more people/orgs to afford to buy it. Also helps the market not crash every year when everyone is forced to sell.
They did it for a bitcoin hack or scam too. They sell it by small amount and reimburse the scammed.
So basically lower the stock returns by devaluing the gains and giving Black Rock all our stocks. The only thing i see happening with that is it's people are not going to be able to retire and they will need to work more because the returns in the market will vaporize their chance to retire.
When the rich move to inventing in hard assets instead of the market, housing will go up as investors buy up the market. Meaning taxing the unraised gains will cause more people to be priced out of housing as well.
Ypu can end discussion about funding something or something getting defended by wouldn't have to close it if billionaires paid fair taxes.
So they you expect them to keep acting as parasite and you mean the law can reign them ? That doomerisme buddy, don't loose hope. And action need to be pushed at many level, you need to spread the idea if so much people start speaking about taxing billionaires constantly the subject will have to be treated.
Let's do it anyway.
Fuck yeah!
So, 370 million Americans would need about only 181 dollars a year each to have a good education?
You think 370 million Americans are all going to go to college?
I hope so.
I'm guessing it would cost more then for all the 90 year olds and toddlers to go to college with the rest of America.
If I were the president of the USA, making EVERYONE do a biannual exam, alongside with learning disability checks, would be my first term promise.
Tbf 4.7% would still take is a long way, especially if colleges stopped being a "company" and didn't inflate their prices in spite of student loan companies.
No disagreement there.
My disagreement is with the meme and anyone who spreads it thinking it's ok to lie to make a point.
look man i’m all for math, and yep a lot of these social problems can math out pessimistically if we use our current economic model as the basis
but the reality here is shits fucked, trillionaires should exist, and eat the fucking rich for once
let’s do that for a change
I don't believe that vehemently disagreeing with the other side gives you a license to spread misinformation. It is my belief that if you have to lie to make your point, maybe you should reconsider your point. This is my belief whether it's MAGA doing the lying or their opponents.
AND just because I've pointed out that this meme is demonstrably incorrect doesn't mean that I don't agree with the sentiment. I just believe this administration and it's followers are doing plenty of factually horrible things, there's plenty of factually good points to make on that topic without having to resort to making shit up. Period.